When Shukri Conrad was playing in the South African school side in the mid-1980s, in his late-teenage years, he would tell his captain, Daryll Cullinan, “I will coach you guys one day.” No one took him seriously. South Africa were still serving the second decade in the wilderness; Nelson Mandela was still in prison; the presence of a boy from Cape Flats, where distinct ethnic groups with mixed ancestry dwelled, in Cape Town, itself had twitched eyebrows. But four eventful decades later, he has not only fulfilled his prophecy but also architected his much-reformed country’s greatest coup, winning the World Test Championship, and now shepherded his men to the stupendous feat of winning a series in India, only the second instance by the Proteas. Just three years into his tenure, 58-year-old Conrad, coached by the late Bob Woolmer at the predominant-white Avendale Cricket Club, has shaped an unbreakable South Africa side. Conrad’s brigade is not the most exciting or gifted or the most fearful the country has produced, but few Proteas sides have exuded the …